Well, if said Flambeau has had a history of behaving like a sphincter (the orifice), then it would be unlikely that he would live long enough to achieve such power. As for a coalition, there needs to first be someone with enough b***s to initiate such an action. For example, a room full of 50 people, one has a gun. Sure, the rest could over power him, but who goes first? Probably the one other guy with a gun (i.e. another magus with 30+ Art scores). And I doubt the Tremere would be willing to fracture their Flambeau alliance (forged in the heat of the Schism War).
But you didn’t mention the guys behavior originally. You were figuring that other magi would e gunning for him simply because he was powerful, no other reasons were given except simple jealousy.
And 30+ Arts are uncommon, but not unheard of or even rare. Cannon has established that 40+ is the normal upper limit. Most Archmagi should have one or more Arts at 30+ (though not necessarily a match TeFo pair). To bring it back to the topic, I would not suggest that there is a large number of LT 100+ longevity rituals out there, but there could be a few.
As far as the Order's place in history goes, my presumption has always been that magi are a part of Mythic History. Their acts and actions help contribute to the state of Mythic Europe in 1220. The fact that it resembles our non-mythic history is complete coincidence. Using that same theme, NPC actions don't alter the course of history, they are likewise a part and parcel of it. Players can change history though. And from his descriptions of past sagas he has played, I think Xavi is responsible for the destruction of at least one city so far 
Hi,
It guarantees a LR of at least a specific level. That's one season of a magus' time, plus vis for the initial casting.
Anyway,
Ken
Hi,
Well, it works differently. I see nothing wrong with a magus being able to destroy a city even without a ritual. It is perfectly appropriate in many sagas. Indeed, I think it's preferable to magi scrabbling around with minor powers.
There are consistency issues with canon no matter how you go. Parma, for example, isn't worth all that much in AM5:
Trianoma: And so you see that with our magnificent new Parma Magica, I am completely safe in the company of my fellow practitioners of the magical arts. Come, join us!
Guernicus (in a really bad mood because of Trianoma's Gift and because he has indigestion): Erdopay Erramtay! (This is pre-Hermetic magic)
(the earth beneath Trianoma vanishes and she goes splat on the bedrock, fifty feet below.)
Guernicus: Her order of wizards didn't last ten seconds. Thought she could trick me, did she, when my guard was down. Serves her right.
Anyway,
Ken
FYI we also killed the Pope. Rather accidentally (4th edition, rolling high and no limit to penetration), but we did it. Toledo is no more, so forget about all those wonderful old text translations from Aristotle ever reaching mainland europe. We are also responsible for the creation of a permanent portal to hell (7 botches) near Ripoll, in Iberia. Those 2 first ones were rather silly sagas (the third was the only one that was "completed"), and those 3 events precipitated the end of the story arcs, but yes, it has happened.
I claim no involvement in the destruction of Toledo, though. That was the other player's doing. I admit killing the Pope, but that is all 
Cheers,
Xavi
Well, a magus can still destroy a city without a ritual - but he'll have to be an archmagus, not someone a decade out of apprenticeship... (two arts at 20 plus a focus will more than suffice for any non-Ritual spell, and that's before counting the numerous other ways to increase your casting total...)
I think Difficult Arts solves both the problem of too low MR and the problem of "powerful" spells available with very little effort and time (especially given a long or fast saga), and makes more sense of the setting. It doesn't solve all the problems, like you noted in your Parma example, and apparently it isn't something nearly anyone else likes, so that's that.
No need for archmagehood: That's what wizard's communion and casting tablets are for 
Apprentices can raze cities as well if they coordinate 
Teamwork beats individual prowess here. In our case, Toledo is by the side of a chasm/canyon. A small earthworks performance and the whole city tumbles down 2 hundred metres (around 600 feet) to the riverbed below. That is exactly what happened in our case.
I also like the toning down of power levels for magi. I hate having to double or triple the Might of every official creature for it to be a slight challenge to a magus (I also hate having stats for the Virgin Mary and archangel michael, but that is another subject). We experimented with it, but my fellow players did not like it a lot, so for the time being we are playing with ArM5 power evolution. I am supoprtive of tyour approach, though. I have been since the heretic's corner articles on this subject in Hermes Portal
Cheers,
Xavi
Right, Mages are very powerful. So much so that they "ought" to have had a bigger effect on the World. So you could depower them or explore the reason or reasons they haven't......
Right Ovarwa. I was just noting that Longevity Rituals are actually quite cheap at the beginning. Having to redo them can get quite expensive. Since you have to redo them every time you have an aging crisis, it would make sense for the House to do it right the first time and save themselves a Lot of Vis. One specialist and his assistants to get that -40 to aging, and you might never have to redo a potion.....
Aye but why would an archmage spend his time creating a longevity ritual for a redcap of so few years service?
Depends on how much the House values Vis. A little investment in time and quality up front could save the House 100+ Vis in the long run. I don't know about the Order, but the Redcaps sure seems to understand Economics......
I suppse I just see this quite differently. I see can and will as very different things. I see a magus' time as very important to them and I see that House Mercere has an obligation to its redcaps to provide longecity rtuals not the order as a whole. Given the paucity of Mercere magi I very much doubt there is enough of their time to go around. I find the likelyhood that the best longevity magus in their house spends so much of his time on men in their thirties.
I would imagine once a redcap starts to hit 70 or 80 he is going to have to start working for his longevity ritual himself because in all probability his own house will struggle to maintain his life. For sure the house will help him convince a suitable magus to procure for him such a ritual. A magus of such power and repute however, is probably interested in more than just a bag full of Vis. He probably gets plenty of that already from other projects. He is also probably very old himself and his priority is to boost his own MT at a rate faster than he is aging. We have already established this is the real inhiboitor and skills at that level need an awful lot of XP to improve.
Right, the House has that obligation, not the Order. The trick is, by canon, Every Redcap gets a Longevity Ritual when they start aging (35 by canon)(Pg 48 under the Redcap Virtue, core book). So, given the rarity of House Mercere mages, it's in the House's best interests to get it done right the first time. Canon doesn't address it, but I think most people on this board would scream like a stuck pig if you said that Redcaps can redo the Longevity Ritual without the help of a Mage. As to the ArchMagus, the canon discourages people from playing Mercere mages for a reason. Their life is in service to the House, in canon. Very curtailed role-playing stories, unless everyone is from the Mercere House, I guess. Remember, House Mercere is not just the richest House, but the most cosmopolitan as well. I can't think of any House that would have better access to Hedge Wizards. You don't really need an ArchMagnus when you are getting +60 to +80 to the Lab Total because you have several Gifted people (Hedge Wizards have the Gift) acting as Lab assistants. Also, given that Mercere mages have been good about serving their House in canon, they are the best House to pull off a "Second apprenticeship". A House mage, feeling the pull of Final Twilight, could and probably would spend the last ten or so years of his life teaching his replacement. That could easily be 1200+ exps for ten years. And one last thought, I imagine the Mages of House Mercere would also the benefit of a organized team for Longevity Rituals. -40 to aging rolls is high but not impossible given money, vis, and Gifted help, and Mercere has all that. How high do you need to raise your MT if you are almost guaranteed to be eaten by Twilight before your first Aging Crisis?
Well I guess we are just not going to agree at all.
I find the idea that a cult of Mercere magi hang out in GCHQ surrounded by a horde of hedge magicians eternally creating longevity rituals to push the envelope of life into the obscene a wild idea. I find it so wild that if that were the case they would get around to mentioning it. To achieve the -40 for aging rolls mentioned requires a lab total of 200. Such men, being of a mercurial bent should be looking to make themselves Gods rather than making longevity rituals. If they can manage such enormous figures why bother researching the mericural past at great expense when they can probably create Mercury himself out of the ether and ask him. If such things are in the saga I wonder why bother even creating a longevity ritual for yourself in the first place. Why wouldn't every magus in the known world want one of those? Surley they can offer more than a messenger service.
In essence I find this concept utterly game wrecking. I am not saying it could not be done, I am saying that if such things take place in your saga as a matter of routine then you are playing an order considerably more epic than anything descirbed in the rulebooks in terms of potential magus power.
Of course, spending so much time in the laboratory is gonna yield a mighty 8XP per year exposure, so let us assume these didicated folks work spend the first 50 years of their hermetic lives developing the required skills and there are three of them working a rota, 1 trainging, one in his prime and one towards twilight. Cmon this is crazy... A player might max out his concept from the beginning but a human doesn't and a human doesnt dedicate a 150 year life to a single purpose.
So you have now 20-ish magical folk working full time to achieve this goal including the hedge traditions mysteriously absorbed into this great task and a substantial proportion of the Merecere magi. All to maintain a MESSENGER NETWORK. Not to mention the fact that with such awesome lab totals they could just create a series of magical devices in a couple of years to completely remove the need for messengers.
Creating a 200th level ritual is harnessing & unleashing a huge amount of metamagic... that can't be good. There is a reason Hermetic magic needs to be limited to a 50-ish level and that is because going any way beyond that means a magus need not leave his home to do just about anything. Moreover he can achieve his desires in a singe combat round.
That is too conspiracy-theorist to me. I prefer to lower the mages' power on the one hand, and up the ante of the Mythic on the other.
On your last post - are Mercere magi that House-oriented? My memory of the write-up was that they were highly respected, and accordingly not overly tasked with House duties. I prefer to imagine them as the Cult Leaders, tying the Cult of Heroes to the Cult of Mercury and all that jazz.
Hi,
It's curious. One of my rules variants does make Arts difficult to increase. But I also have magi leaving apprenticeship with no points in Arts and with massive static Arts bonus. Thus, an archmagus remains vastly more powerful than a newly-gauntleted magus, yet I contract the difference compared to canon. Where you make things difficult across the board, I cap the high end. I like this for a few reasons: A magus' fundamental strengths and weaknesses will always depend more on him than on the covenant's library; it makes sense for powerful magi to respect newly Gauntleted magi as full magi with full voting rights because they have come into a significant amount of the power they will ever possess; a new magus has a pretty good idea of his potential; vastly diminishing returns to scale when learning Arts provides incentive to do something else; I prefer stories that are about something other than the accumulation of power for its own sake.
My variant gave Arts an exponential experience chart, with lvl5 costing 10xp, lvl 10 costing 50xp, lvl15 costing 250xp, etc. (In this variant, pretty much no one has a score of 25, and summae top out around 11.) A Tremere archmagus at the peak of his career would probably have--including bonuses from apprenticeship--three or four Arts effectively at 25 and the rest (barring a deficiency) at 15. The best practitioner in the Order would have a 37 in one Art (and maybe 10s in the others), and barely be able to write a lvl 11 summa.)
If I wanted weaker magi under that system, I'd change the base from 5 to, say, 10, with lvl5 costing 10xp, lvl10 costing 100xp, and so on.
Using the Ability xp chart has the nice feature of being, well, standard. It also goes nicely with "yes, you can take Cautious with Art." But I like having magi be powerful right out of apprenticeship; it's at the high end where I think internal consistency starts to break down. (Except for transportation spells. 
)
Anyway,
Ken
Well, let us chalk it up to different tastes. What you see as a "problem" is what I view as an "expectation". I want my players to be that powerful, and I get frustrated when they are not.
But they have! Perhaps it is because of magi that Charlemagne grew to power (or maybe visa versa ).
It doesn't require a change in history, just a change in the way you percieve history unfolding.
Oh, I agree. It's just that we have nothing in canon about cities destroyed or plagues started or sinking cities saved. And the the easiest explanation is that that sort of thing is covered up, in an attempt to "live up to the Code!". It's a short leap from a game of Secrets to a game of Secret Conspiracies. The Order isn't organized enough to pull this off, who is? they would have to have a lot of Vis, and access to everywhere the Order goes, and farther. Who would fit this bill?
Me, i like to increase the range of R/D/T used instead. And changing a few of the guidelines that feels over the top, like PeCo "kill a person" at just base level 30?
Increasing the RDT range means you can easily squeeze in R like "Whisper"+1, "Rod"(5m)+2, "Actus"(35m)+3, "Stadium"(185m)+4, "Milliarium"(1.5km)+6, D like "Hour"+2, "Moon Phase"(until the next out of the 4 classical phases)+2, "4 Hours"+3, "Dawn"(day+night)+4...
And so on(with unrestricted RDTs being alot costlier)...
This retains the ability to cast very powerful effects, but perhaps not at the RDTs you would have preferred.
Not entirely, anyhow. For one, those of the Order have lived under a "no harm" (to their fellows) which precludes many types of overt interaction with mudanes, such as destroying entire cities. Surely someone from the Order will have reason to complain that they have been harmed by such an action.
As a result, major historical events since the founding of the Order (with some obvious exceptions early on) have likely been influenced by Hermetic wizards, and to a lesser extent, non-Hermetic casters. However, the types of influence and meddling will tend to be more subtle in nature.
Certainly, some exceptions have been overlooked or simply ignored--take various events during the early Iberian Reconquista as probable samples--but for the most part, a magi would prefer to meddle and remain alive than meddle and be marched.
The other thing to consider is that Hermetic magi are not necessarily so comparably all-powerful as it might at first seem. Other non-Hermetic wizards, sorcerers, and the like, may achieve notable levels of power too (though arguably less often). Of course, other forces--supernatural and magic, divine and infernal, etc.--may also interfere in ways that prevent, or dissuade, an extremely powerful magi from interacting in a fashion that leads to destroying an entire city.
I like to imagine a game of "societal" chess going on. At the top levels--the "kings and queens" of the game--are dealing with such raw amounts of power, but against adversaries capable of equal displays--that it makes for a sort of "mutual destruction" scenario preventing full applications of power. At least in most cases. Hermetic magi of legendary status, as "kings and queens" in the game, are no different, and we have to presume they often face enemies and forces equal to their own.
In the end, I suspect, or at least favor the idea, that legendary magi become concerned with topics that more or less preclude the mundane world. Most are hardly attached to it in the first place, willing outsiders who may even see the mundane world as a nuisance to avoid. They likely withdraw into pursuits, or struggles, that are so foreign to the politics and people of the mundane world, that most never consider raw, overt acts for the simple fact that no benefit exists to drive them so.
Of course, all this speaks toward the meta-gaming mindset of some players who see gaps between the story-lines and cannon of Ars Magica, and the relative power of their magi. I'd suggest that this type of thinking is the result of a poor Storyguide who hasn't raised the danger bar high enough to cause even the most powerful of magi concern. No matter how powerful a magi has become, the real Kings of the medieval stage are often much more powerful, with resources capable of pursuing an entire tribunal of wizards, let alone a single, albeit very powerful magi.